You know…you’ll say something like, “Whoa! You’re interested in that?” or “Honey, I’ve been trying to push this down for a long time, but I need to tell you that I really want to…”
One or the other of you, and quite possibly both, will out yourself or be outed that there is something sexually that has not been getting met in the relationship. Something important. Maybe not something that needs to happen all the time, but something you crave or your partner does.
This is perfectly normal. Expect it.
We often live in sexually uptight societies. I know the United States, where I live, is one of the most uptight of the democratic, freedom-loving nations around. We like to act like we’re all open and willing to explore sexually, but most of us aren’t. The fact that so much of the quality fetish wear and good fetish videos come from places like the United Kingdom and Germany, for example, speaks volumes in that regard, I think.
Because there is so much judgment and sexual awkwardness and nervousness about perceptions all around us, many of us don’t talk about our more fringe desires or kinkier thoughts, not even with the people we have sex with on a regular basis. Not even with people we may have traded vows with before an altar or justice of the peace.
That’s sad.
But it’s also a fact of life.
And so, as I said before, expect to be surprised one day. Or anticipate that one day you will blurt out one of your needs to your partner.
That is, I guess, sort of the “part one” of this article. Or a really rambling preamble.
What I want to talk about is training your partner.
No, no, I don’t mean BDSM training rigs, or pony-girl costumes and behaviors, or withhold/reward strategies—though they all have their place and can be fun in their own rights.
What I mean is that you have to ask yourself: Am I willing to work on my partner—whether through conversation or seduction or nuts-and-bolts walkthroughs or trial-and-error attempts—to get them up to speed where I need them to be? (Because some partners don’t come “kink-ready”)
The fact is that niche sexual desires, kinks and outright fetishes are powerful things. Even if we don’t rely on them for most or all of our arousal (clinically speaking, that’s a paraphilia rather than a fetish, usually), they remain there, lurking and beckoning, and we will eventually get irritated if they aren’t fulfilled somewhere, somehow. It won’t always be a relationship killer, but it’s certainly a joy killer.
For example, it’s taken my wife years (we’ve got 16 of them together now) to come to grips with her need to have sex with people other than me and to admit that, much less work toward making it happen. Also to accept that she has desires for women sometimes and that those needs also need to be met at some point again (they haven’t since before we met and very early once after we got together). She also expressed in passing a desire for golden shower action roughly a decade ago and only finally was able to accept that I was ready for it (despite telling her years ago I was willing) about a year ago and finally try it.
For my part, I have had a smoking fetish most of my life, and couldn’t bring myself to tell her until 9 or 10 years ago, even though she has been a smoker most of the years we’ve been together. And even with that revelation to her, and her eventual acceptance of my “oddity,” she isn’t really one to smoke much during sexual situations or to use her smoke seductively, though she’s come a long way from where she was.
All these things, though, require a certain amount of “training.” Getting me to a point where I could be comfortable with the idea of us having an open marriage, where swinging and/or polyamory might occur, wasn’t easy. I had a lot of territorial instincts going that impeded that. It’s probably something that should have been addressed much earlier in our relationship, though admittedly it might have broken us up back then.
That’s one of the tricky things, too. Not only ask whether you are willing to “train” your partner but also ask whether you are able to hold back your desires long enough for the right point to be reached in your relationship where breaking the news of your desire will be possible. Or should you find someone already open to your needs, even if it would be someone you might not love as much? These are tough choices.
Anyway, though, my wife had to work on me a bit, and still does in smaller ways. Same in the other direction, too. For me, I had to be patient with her giving up the idea of smoking as a personal pleasure to incorporate sexuality into it as well, and to accept the idea that I wanted to take up smoking a bit in my life at middle age, when I’d never smoked before. There are still many things I wish my wife could or would do with her smoking, but at the same time, I realize I won’t get everything on my wish list and so I focus on what she can pick up, and realize that my other desires may not get met, or might get met through other avenues.
That, too, is a challenge. Can you train yourself to accept just getting what you need but perhaps forego some of the things you want for the sake of the relationship?
And that self-examination part? Well, it brings up a whole other area: Are you willing to be trained? When your partner drops a sexual bomb on you that you may not have been expecting, are you willing to give up some of your comfort zones to adapt? That’s something you should ask yourself from the very start. Too many people would be willing to lay down their lives for their partner but never open their ass to them, for example. That’s kind of fucked up, if you ask me.
Personal example on that: When my wife first mentioned a desire to maybe pee on me or be peed upon, I didn’t freak. I told her I was OK with trying it, any time she wanted to. I actually reminded her I was OK with it periodically through the years so that she would know I was sincere, as well as because I was beginning to get some of my fetish needs met and didn’t want to be selfish and have her needs not be met.
Although she never bit on that invitation until about a year ago, I knew the day would probably come. So I tried my own pee a few times. As in drinking some of it. Although she hadn’t mentioned anything specifically about drinking pee or doing a golden into my mouth, I knew the chances were high that it would come up at some point if we ever made the plunge in golden territory. So I wanted to know what I might be getting into and whether I could handle it.
Also, my wife has long had a desire to see me with another man (though she didn’t reveal that until halfway through our marriage or longer). That hasn’t happened yet, but it probably will. And so I’ve introduced some more gay-themed videos a little into my porn mix. Not a regular staple of my masturbation sessions, but something I believe I need to get a “feel” for. I’ve also worked toward tasting and swallowing my own come every once in a while when I am alone with myself or having some kind of sex with the wife, because I may come face to face with that substance (literally) one day soon. I’ve also explored anal play with myself more than I might have been likely to otherwise.
There are hard limits for both of us, and there should be. I think people who are open literally to anything can be questionable. Because “anything” includes things like bestiality and pedophilia/pederasty, for example, which are both on our “NO” list along with anything to do with feces or barf, the latter of which is a fetish even my VERY open mind just cannot comprehend.
In the end, I love my wife and desire to see her needs and wants met as much as possible, and so I take steps where I can to be ready. I also kind of expect, since we are in a loving relationship, that she will explore and be willing to adapt to my needs as well, and her spike in libido in middle age has helped a lot in that regard. Patience paid off in my case, though it doesn’t in everyone’s case.
But it’s best, for all concerned, that we be open early on to the idea of training our partners or being trained by them to do things we might not be all that thrilled about ourselves.
Not everyone can do that. But more of us should be.
And if we aren’t, we need to make sure we only get together with people of like desires.
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